NHL to meet with James Neal and Arron Asham for possible discipline

From NHL.com:

Pittsburgh forward James Neal will have hearings on Tuesday with the Department of Player Safety for two separate incidents in Sunday's Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals series against the Philadelphia Flyers. Also, Pittsburgh forward Arron Asham has been offered an in-person hearing Tuesday morning for his match penalty for cross-checking Brayden Schenn at 14:15 of the first period. Asham received a match penalty on the hit. Neal's hearings focus on the hit against Sean Couturier in the third period, as well as the charging penalty he received for a hit on Claude Giroux later in the period. Neal was not penalized on the Couturier hit.

The in-person aspect is for what the league views as serious, potential 5+ game suspensions, so Asham, a known fighter and rough player, could have likely played his last game of the season. Especially given he made contact with Brayden Schenn's throat area with a cross-check, then punched him in the back of the head once the player was down. Asham's gotta be gone, for how long probably doesn't even matter given the Pens current 0-3 series hole.

The bigger question is that of Neal. He's obviously a very important player for the Pens, but the fact that he has two questionable high hits in as many shifts, made his objective pretty clear: he was head hunting. That can't bode well for him being in the lineup for Game 4 (At least). After that, who knows.

But then again, the NHL didn't suspend Shea Weber for slamming the head of a star player WWE style into the boards, so heaven only knows where the inconsistent wheel-of-justice/Shanaban will fall.